Red's Mate (Alpha's Woman Book 3) Read online

  Red’s Mate

  Carolyn Faulkner

  Blushing Books

  Contents

  What’s Inside

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Carolyn Faulkner

  EBook Offer

  Blushing Books Newsletter

  Blushing Books

  ©2018 by Blushing Books® and Carolyn Faulkner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Blushing Books®,

  a subsidiary of

  ABCD Graphics and Design

  977 Seminole Trail #233

  Charlottesville, VA 22901

  The trademark Blushing Books®

  is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.

  Carolyn Faulkner

  Red’s Mate

  EBook ISBN: 978-1-61258-783-7

  Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

  What’s Inside

  Before she knew it, Ebby was bent in half, hanging over his formidably thick thigh. He was so tall—and she so small—that her extremities barely touched the ground, even when he carefully placed his other leg over hers, trapping them against his bent leg, reaching down to clamp a hand none too gently at the base of her skull, rendering her essentially immobile with an ease that made her want to cry.

  She wasn't at all sure what it was that he was up to, but she was relatively certain she didn't want to find out, especially since this position—so close to him and so terribly vulnerable—was causing her to want to rub herself indecently against him just to find some kind—any kind—of relief from the aggravating, mind-numbing ache that was pulsing between her legs.

  And then she felt it and couldn't control a startled scream as his hand began to connect with her bare bottom in what quickly became a frightfully consistent rhythm.

  "This is but a taste, little girl," he rasped down at her. "You're going to get a thorough spanking just to let you know what you can expect any time you don't obey my orders to the letter."

  With that, he said nothing else as he relentlessly assaulted her small but generous behind and down the backs of her thighs as far as he could reach above his other leg. Each one came very close to making her cry out again—especially the longer it went on—not in surprise, but in pure pain. But Ebby clamped her teeth together and refused to make another sound, no matter the provocation.

  To her deep humiliation, she was only able to honor that vow to herself for another few minutes as he slowly, relentlessly dismantled her ability to resist vocalizing her distress. At first, it was soft whimpers as he continued that horrible rise and tremendous, cracking fall of his palm against flesh she couldn't cringe away from him, as much as she wanted to. He kept her bottom exactly where he wanted it and her the perfect, helpless target.

  From whimpers, it was a very short step to cries, and even sooner, moans. And, although she managed to keep herself from pleading with him to stop—barely—she was wailing loudly with every crisp, stinging swat that landed long before he stopped.

  To add more shame to her humiliation, she had been crying almost from the first spank she'd received, her tears mixing with the dark stain of the evidence of her body's desires on the rug beneath her.

  Prologue

  In the vast wasteland that Earth had become, Emily Harding—a woman out of time who had been released from stasis into a world that was utterly unrecognizable to her—had carved herself a comfortable niche with her Alpha mate, Vaudt.

  He was a fearless soldier and leader, who kept himself, his mate, and those who fought with him safe from harm as they made their lives in a small compound in the unforgiving landscape in which they found themselves, surrounded by the remnants and reminders of what had once been a great civilization—the one about which Emily had first-hand knowledge.

  His second, Kosh, had been lucky enough to find a rare omega of his own—Tura—and although their relationship had gotten off to a rocky start, they, too, had come to care deeply about each other in the way that only a bonded Alpha/omega pair could.

  But theirs was far from the only stronghold in an otherwise cruel and grim environment.

  Chapter 1

  They didn't know what they had until they got there.

  They had heard rumors that there was something of great value here, amongst the ever-present ruins of what had been, but they had no idea what until they got closer. His men had fought valiantly to that point, but as soon as they began to sense what might be contained in this tiny, ragged, remote village, they lost their focus and sense of mission entirely. The strict military discipline that had been instilled in all of them broke down, and each of them—with the exception of a few stalwart souls and some of his staff of high ranking officers—began fighting viciously amongst themselves, intent on grabbing the ultimate prize for themselves and murdering everyone in their way—even their best comrades—in order to get it.

  Nothing filled their heads, nothing tantalized their senses, nothing commandeered their bodies and minds more completely or more devastatingly—even than strong drink or gambling—as this had. Indeed, no deterrent—not even the surety of death that came with desertion and dereliction of duty—was strong enough to dissuade them. They thought of nothing else, each with the same ultimate goal that he would have it for himself.

  The town they invaded was so poor and makeshift that, in their uncontrolled frenzy, everything had been razed to the ground. What hadn't been destroyed by the fighting was smoldering from the inevitable fires.

  Now, the battlefield, such as it was, was laid waste, bodies everywhere—more of his own men than natives by far. He'd had to outright kill some of his best men himself because they would not—could not—stand down. It was an oddly eerie sight, as there wasn't the usual sound of the wounded crying and groaning. Anyone who had challenged him and the small band of men who had remained loyal to him, despite the fact that he knew they had been subjected to the same impulse as the rest of the weak they had fought, had been put to death. It was a harsh judgment he'd had no choice but to enforce. Mutineers could meet with only one fate, no matter the reason behind their rebellion.

  They certainly couldn't be allowed to get their hands on what they sought with such vigor.

  His core group of men—what remained of the battalion—gathered around him on the outskirts as he surveyed their worst defeat in years—and at their own damned hands!

  "Where is it?"

  "Safely delivered to your tent, Colonel, although…" His legate, Kavan, looked severely reluctant to speak further, which was unlike him. They were brothers-in-arms, and he and Ciaran had shared everything they possibly could, including women.

  "What is it, soldier? Spit it out!"

  The younger man drew a hesitant breath. "We—well, we, uh, lost some of the Omega A-Team who procured and…delivered…it."

  "How the fuck did that happen?" he asked, incensed and already heading for his horse.

  "Well, the prize was—" Kavan had never seemed quite so
averse to telling him much of anything, until now.

  "Was what?" He'd never been known for his patience, and what little was left of it was wearing very thin.

  Finally, he spit it out, with no small amount of embarrassment. "Uncooperative and surprisingly good with a knife."

  Despite the seriousness of what his right-hand man was imparting to him, Ciaran gave him what passed for a smile. "I see," he said, swinging up onto his stallion without the use of a stirrup. "How many?"

  Kavan knew that he was asking how many they'd lost. "Three."

  "Three!"

  "We likely would have lost the other two if they hadn't managed to knock it out."

  The look on the colonel's face let him know that he could very easily be joining the corpses they'd just been stepping over. "Unacceptable—both the loss of those good men in a situation that should have been anticipated and, also, the use of that method to control it."

  "Yes, Colonel," he agreed, not that it mattered. "I think they thought it was the only avenue open to them and employed it as a last resort to retain control rather than lose it."

  "I had given express orders that it was not to be harmed in any way. Did I not, Legate?" he snarled, his tone implying that the exalted title might not be his for much longer.

  Kavan sank to his knee immediately, holding up both his gun and his sword over his head as an offering to the bigger man, to do with as he pleased.

  Although the huge hooves of his enormous, volatile stallion kept dancing dangerously nearer to the closest thing he had to a friend, Ciaran kept him under control, frowning darkly and growling, "Put those down. I guess I'll see for myself what it is that we've found and how something like that nonetheless managed to kill three of my best men, who were supposedly trained to prevent exactly something like that from happening."

  With that, he galloped off, leaving his junior officer sighing in relief and in charge of seeing if there was anything else left of any value to scavenge, although he doubted it.

  His tent, as the colonel and the commanding officer of the battalion, was in the center of the camp—the rest of it being constructed around where he was—and it was also relatively luxurious, especially in comparison to how regular soldiers lived.

  He'd seen pictures of how things had been before, though, heard stories that his father and grandfather had told him at their knees, although he'd found it hard at that young age to believe it. But nowadays, he'd seen the evidence with his own eyes of how far man had come—well, what was left of it, anyway—at one time, and baldly acknowledged the fact that even he lived in squalor and poverty in comparison to what had once been.

  Although he wasn't much of a man to cling to comforts, his tent was more than merely where he slept. It was also where he met his junior officers, and where, on the rare occasion, if they were strong enough, if they fought well enough, he met with the leaders of places that were much better organized and able to fend them off than the pathetic one they'd destroyed today.

  And he recognized the power of a subtle display of wealth to such as those, as reflected by the sumptuous surroundings into which they were brought—whether it was a fellow soldier or rebel leader.

  There was an actual door to his tent rather than the flap everyone else had, and the rest of the tent covered an actual, easily disassembled structure that gave it the shape of a large, square room. It was something he'd taken as a spoil of war long ago, from an—unsuccessful—leader of a ragtag band of men who considered themselves to be soldiers of a sort.

  But not the right kind, apparently, since they'd lost.

  When he came through that door, he immediately began to search—with his eyes only—and the fact that she was not readily visible didn't particularly worry him, despite what she'd done to his men. In fact, he was so unconcerned that he simply followed his usual after-battle routine as if nothing was different, when literally everything was different.

  He took off his helmet and divested himself of his guns. Then he began to remove the makeshift, piecemeal body armor that covered his regular battle uniform, which was of camouflage material that roughly matched the wasted landscape in which he lived and fought. It was protective but lightweight, so he wouldn't overheat.

  Ciaran usually had a boy to do this for him—a personal slave who took care of his armor, brought him food and water and anything else he wanted—but, being well-trained, he had waited outside the tent this time, and Ciaran had dismissed him, preferring to be alone when coming face to face with that which he had coveted for so long.

  As he stripped each part from his body, putting them carefully where they belonged in each case, he listened acutely for any unusual sounds or movements and did his best to ignore what his own body—hell, every thought or instinct he had—was clamoring for him to do.

  The bold-faced truth was that Ciaran had never been this aroused in his life. He'd scented her through the entire battle, which probably accounted for the large number of losses on their side, even though they'd won. Men of lesser mettle hadn't been able to control themselves or their reactions to that very particular, very potent aroma, eagerly abandoning their mission in favor of locating that which every man—every Alpha—most desired in this hellhole of a world.

  And he had her. She was here, mere feet away, and yet he forced himself to continue as if she wasn't.

  It was a test of will, and one—for once—he wasn't at all sure he was going to win.

  He knew exactly where she was, too—where she thought she'd hidden herself from him so that she might perpetuate whatever kind of mischief she intended. The elite team of male Omegas who had captured her and brought her here for him—what little remained of it because of her unacceptably successful efforts—would have stripped her of any weapons—and most likely her clothing, too—and probably bound her hands and feet, at least, before putting her in here and taking their positions outside the door to guard her—with their lives, if necessary—until he returned.

  But he wasn't going to take any chances and assume that she was still bound or even unarmed. If she'd managed to kill his men—any of his men—then she was a formidable force, indeed. If she hadn't been female and such a coveted prize, then he might have offered her a high-ranking position in his little corner of what currently passed for an army.

  But Ciaran wasn't about to allow her to escape the reality of her true destiny. He intended that she would confront it every second of every day, at his hands—and other, more demanding parts.

  He didn't complete all of his usual after-battle rituals, though, declining to call for a bath, deliberately leaving himself—his face, hands, and muscular arms, as well as his uniform—blood spattered and dirty rather than cleaning up and, instead, stalking over to the end of his big bed. As he did so, he could see how, on the right side, the rugs next to the bed were stained with blood and dirt very much like he was, leaving an unmistakable woman-sized smudge that clearly led under the bed.

  A reluctant smile curved one side of his lips up. He stood nearby, not close enough that she would be able to reach out and grab one of his ankles, though, but near enough that he would easily be able to catch her no matter what side from which she decided to attempt her escape.

  Clasping his hands behind his back, he spoke calmly, "If you come out now, you will be better treated, I promise you, than if you make me come after you."

  "Liar!" The vehement accusation was easily discernable, despite from where it had originated.

  He merely chuckled softly, although there was no amusement in it at all.

  Then, in a split second that she didn't see coming or she certainly would have done her best to scramble out of his way, the entire huge bed was lifted up by him with one hand. Ciaran easily bent down and caught the rope between her still bound ankles, using it to drag her out before letting the bed hit the floor again with a loud thump and creak as he rose to hold her upside down by her bindings, as if she was a fish he'd caught and he was holding her by her tail.

  And
she was wiggling like one, too. She'd worked her hands out of the ropes somehow, at some point, but not before she'd had to dive under the bed, he surmised, because she hadn't gotten to free her legs yet. But his arm was much too long and he much too tall for their freedom to do her any good.

  Not that that seemed to curb her frantic attempts to both escape and, he was sure, cause him grievous bodily harm, if possible. She swung her entire body as well as her arms at him but accomplished absolutely nothing in the process.

  But, despite her frantic movements, it didn't take her long to still herself completely after taking a deep breath, hanging there panting before him. He knew instinctively that she had decided to conserve whatever strength she had left for a more opportune time and had to feel a small amount of admiration for her. In his not inconsiderable experience, most females in her place—much less an omega, whom he understood was probably feeling much the same urges as he was, perhaps even more so—would have continued to expend her energy in futile protest for as long as they could, leaving themselves nothing with which to put up any further fight.

  And from her end of things, if she knew anything about herself and what she was at all, she knew that the really important battle was yet to come.

  What he didn't know was that Ebby was still struggling mightily, but internally, fighting so many things at once that she could barely think at all.

  Her automatic reaction to being held like this was to want to fight, but she knew she shouldn't, so, after the initial period of panic, she'd forced herself to still. She was terrified that she was going to die, one way or the other, but in some of the scenarios that were running through her fertile mind, she was going to live, instead, and, judging by the sheer size and strength of the man who was holding her, that was truly going to be much worse.